The purpose of this professional networking event was to facilitate connections among Immersive Internet advocates, implementers and explorers. We designed the event to be fast-flowing and highly engaging. We held it during the middle of the workday eastern time. More than 70 people registered from all over the US as well as from Canada, the UK, France, Spain, and Hong Kong. We experimented with a new event format:

13 five-minute presentations. We invited attendees who had something to share (e.g., their resume or a job description) to sign up in advance to deliver a 5-minute talk about the work or talent they were seeking. Each presenter had their own presentation station. Event participants walked or flew from one station to the next on a structured tour. Each station had the presenter’s name on it with a link to their LinkedIn profile. Each presenter was permitted to use one image or 3D object as a prop.

Speed networking. We held a half-hour speed networking session using a tool called Poinky’s Pods built by ThinkBalm Innovation Community member Jonas Karlsson. The tool seats participants with one other person for a five-minute exchange, after which all participants are automatically shifted to another random seat.

This was our first attempt at an immersive professional networking event and we learned a few lessons. The event took a lot of planning and preparation but it was well worth it. The two and a half hours flew by and feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. On the down side, most of the people who participated were looking for work, rather than offering work – which was disappointing to some. Also, during the speed networking session the “cocktail party effect” was a bit too loud. People could overhear the voices of others in nearby pods and this was distracting. But overall the event turned out to be a very fun, engaging, and valuable way for people to make professional connections.

We are proud to announce that we’ve been invited to deliver the opening keynote at the 3DTLC conference, taking place on September 23rd and 24th in San Jose, California. Our session is titled, “Crossing the Chasm, One Implementation at a Time.”

Before work-related use of the Immersive Internet can reach the early majority phase of adoption we face a wide chasm filled with barriers. This can be overwhelming when looked at as a whole. But the barriers – as well as the benefits – depend on why and how this emerging technology is put to work. Across industries and company sizes, hard-working project teams are applying immersive technology to burning business problems in eight major areas. In this session, we’ll share our research into the business value of the Immersive Internet and offer a set of good practices for knocking down the barriers to adoption.

Here’s where you come in!We are kicking off a new research report digging into how Immersive Internet advocates and implementers are overcoming – or not – the barriers to adoption. We expect to publish this report, which is a follow-on to the ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009, on the opening day of the conference. We would like to interview you if you have been part of an Immersive Internet project team and have a story to share about overcoming (or avoiding) barriers like target users having inadequate hardware, corporate security restrictions, getting target users interested in using this emerging technology, or user training taking more effort than you expected. Please contact us at info@thinkbalm.com.

The 3DTLC conference team is offering a $200 discount to attendees who mention this discount code when they register by August 14th: SPEAKERVIP. To register go here: http://www.3dtlc.com.

We are pleased to announce the speaker lineup for the first-ever ThinkBalm Innovation Community professional networking event, scheduled for August 4th. We are near capacity for registration for this event, so please let us know immediately if you plan to attend. This professional networking event is designed for people who are passionate about work-related use of the Immersive Internet and are looking for work, looking for someone to fill a position, or simply curious about their options.

17 five-minute presentations. We invited attendees who have something to share (e.g., their resume or a job description) to sign up in advance to deliver a 5-minute talk about the position or staff they are seeking. Each presenter has their own presentation station in the event area. The station has the presenter’s name on it with a link to their LinkedIn profile. Each presenter is permitted to use one image or 3D object in support of their presentation. Attendees will walk (or fly) as a group from one station to the next on a structured tour.

Speed networking. We will hold a speed networking session using a tool called Poinky’s Pods built by ThinkBalm Innovation Community member Jonas Karlsson. The tool seats participants with one other attendee for a five-minute exchange, after which all participants are shifted to another random seat. You never know who you’ll end up talking to!

Document repository. We are using box.net, which is integrated with LinkedIn, as the repository for resumes, job descriptions, and images people will be using to support their presentation. We invited all registered participants for whom we have email addresses to access this box.net site.

I frequently am tasked with recalling specific data points from the ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009 for client inquiries, presentations, press calls, and blog posts. I can’t remember the exact numbers — my memory is sieve-like — so for the first week after the report was published I would go to the 36-page PDF and do a word search. Because it would take me too long to navigate my computer’s file system to get to the correct folder where the PDF is stored, I found that the easiest way to get to the PDF was through our Web site. But opening the actual PDF from the Web site took too long and I got frustrated.

So I tried going to the PowerPoint file containing the data charts from the study. But navigating my file system to find the PowerPoint deck, and then doing a word search or flipping through the charts one by one to find the chart I needed was also frustrating. I have several versions of the PowerPoint slides that were created for different purposes, and there are all the old drafts to contend with.

After the ThinkBalm Data Garden went live in the virtual world of Second Life, displaying data from the study, I immediately began to go there whenever I was looking for specific numbers from the survey. This is the way to go.

I can see the layout of the ThinkBalm Data Garden in my mind’s eye

A few observations:

I can find what I need more quickly in the 3D environment than the old way. I launch my client software, log into the virtual world, press “Page Up” to fly, and within 2 seconds am standing in front of the exact data chart I need. I know what direction to fly in probably because I helped build the environment, have given dozens of tours, and helped produce a video tour about it. I can picture the entire tour loop in my mind.

Recalling information in 3D relieves mental stress. When I really tune in while meandering through a hierarchical file system to find a piece of information I need, I am aware that I feel mild stress. I’m an organized person, but I don’t always know ahead of time how my files should be organized and their organic growth doesn’t always make it easy for me to find stuff when I need it. The same is true for file and folder naming. I try to be organized and give things logical names. But what made sense at the time doesn’t always make the most sense later.

It’s not just me! I mentioned my observations to Sam Driver and he said that he finds information from our study the same way: he visits the ThinkBalm Data Garden. Today I mentioned my observation to a couple of visitors who stopped by the data garden and both understood exactly what I meant. One of them — Rob Muhlestein, an IBMer I respect very much — said he does the same thing. He visits the island when he wants to recall a data point from the study.

The human brain recalls information spatially, in 3D. Finding the data I need this way feels natural. My brain is used to understanding information in 3D. Despite that I’ve been doing it for more than 20 years, my brain is not skilled at navigating hierarchical, alphabetical text lists of folders and files, and then skipping linearly through a bunch of document pages to find the information I want. One of the people I mentioned my observations to agreed, “Our brains are designed to process 3d data quickly and intuitively. It’s how we can walk around in a 3d world without bumping into things.” She hit the nail on the head.

This has profound implications for work-related use of the Immersive Internet — especially for the learning and training and collaborative 3D data visualization use cases. Lesson learned: find engaging, visually stimulating ways to create data experiences and one of the ways it could pay off is through productivity improvement and increased job satisfaction. Yes, on a micro level — but still. I think I’m onto something.

Attendees who have something to share (e.g., their resume or a job description) will sign up in advance to deliver a 5-minute presentation. We’ll use a virtual gong (yes, a gong) to make sure we stay on time. Each presenter will be allowed to use one image or 3D object in support of their presentation.

We will have a rapid networking session using a tool called Poinky’s Pods built by ThinkBalm Innovation Community member Jonas Karlsson. The tool seats you with another person for a five-minute exchange, after which all participants are shifted to another random seat. You never know who you’ll end up talking to!

We’ll have some kind of solution for people to upload resumes, job descriptions, presentations, etc. . . . and it will all be integrated with LinkedIn.

The two of us sometimes get questions about what we do for a living. We seem to have created a bit of confusion about the distinction between our industry analysis and consulting business and the ThinkBalm Innovation Community. To clear things up, here’s a Q&A. Let us know if you have additional questions and we’ll answer them in comments on this blog post.

Q: Is ThinkBalm the same thing as ThinkBalm Innovation Community?

A: No. We wear two hats: ThinkBalm is our revenue-generating business, and the ThinkBalm Innovation Community is a volunteer effort we spearhead for the benefit of everyone involved with work-related use of immersive technology.

ThinkBalm. ThinkBalm is an independent industry analyst firm founded in June, 2008. We are headquartered in Rhode Island, USA. We are two people: Erica Driver and Sam Driver. We deliver Immersive Internet analysis and consulting services to technology marketers and Immersive Internet explorers, advocates, and implementers. We publish industry analysis, good practices reports, and blog articles, all of which are freely available from our Web site at www.thinkbalm.com. The manner in which we create our reports is not business as usual; four of the six published ThinkBalm reports are issues of the ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Storytelling Series, which document ThinkBalm Innovation Community experiences and offer up good practices – and feature contribution from dozens of community members on the “with” lines.

ThinkBalm Innovation Community. The mission of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community is to advance adoption of work-related use of the Immersive Internet. Since its launch in August of 2008, the ThinkBalm Innovation Community has evolved into a mix between a social network, collaborative laboratory, and guild. It is made up of bright and passionate Immersive Internet advocates, practitioners, and technology providers. This community is focused exclusively on work-related use of the Immersive Internet — virtual worlds and campuses, immersive learning environments, and 3D business applications. We are interested in use cases like learning and training, meetings and conferences, business activity rehearsal, collaborative design and prototyping, collaborative 3D data visualization, remote system and facility management, and human resources management. We have approximately 250 community members in the ThinkBalm Innovation Community group on LinkedIn®.

Q: What does the ThinkBalm Innovation Community do?

A: Since its inception, the community has generated nearly a hundred ideas, some of which evolved into projects. Software tools, experimental event formats, and research reports have come out of community interactions and activities. The learning has been phenomenal. We’ve held dozens of brainstorming sessions, role-playing sessions, “un-lectures” (four short presentations, tours or demos in an hour), and other kinds of events. The culture of the community is what makes it so special: we have created a marketing-free haven for explorers to meet and learn from each other, collaboratively solve problems, discuss big picture theory, and network with an open and helpful group of people. The challenge for most of us is in finding a fellow explorer: often there simply aren’t any allies within one’s organization, and the ThinkBalm Innovation Community can provide that gang of allies.

Q: Do I have to be a ThinkBalm client to be a member of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community?

Q: What is ThinkBalm’s business model for the ThinkBalm Innovation Community?

A: ThinkBalm derives no direct revenue from the ThinkBalm Innovation Community; participation is free. All activities are volunteer-driven.

Q: What is ThinkBalm’s research methodology?

A: We conduct surveys and interviews, like many industry analysts do. But ThinkBalm analysts also have daily interactions and deepening relationships with hundreds of people who use the immersive technologies we cover. As of late today, the ThinkBalm Innovation Community group on LinkedIn has nearly 250 members. Also, rather than analyzing the technologies we cover from a distance and making recommendations based on what vendors and their customers tell us; we use immersive technologies hands-on every single day. During the 13 months ThinkBalm has been around, we have held ThinkBalm Innovation Community events and planning meetings in Altadyn 3DXplorer, IBM Sametime 3D (now called Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Sametime), Qwaq Forums, our OpenSim private grid, ReactionGrid, and Second Life. We’re planning future events in Forterra OLIVE and Nortel web.alive. We administer our own immersive environments, have learned how to build 3D content (albeit in a kindergarten kind of way), and have hosted dozens of immersive events and tours. We experience first hand over and over again how difficult it is for new users to get accustomed to working in an immersive environment. We live and breathe the Immersive Internet. It has become a way of work for us. All of this gives us a unique perspective on this emerging technology market.

We hope this helps clear up any confusion. Let us know if you have any questions.

We are running a new experiment for the next couple of weeks. We will hold office hours in a variety of publicly-accessible immersive technologies. This is a great opportunity to learn more about ThinkBalm — meet the analysts and pick our brains about Immersive Internet trends and technologies, in an informal environment. We’d be happy to share with you findings from our research and update you on ThinkBalm Innovation Community activities. This is also an opportunity to gain some experience with immersive technologies you may not have used before, like Altadyn 3DXplorer, Nortel web.alive, ReactionGrid, and Second Life.

Office hours schedule

Sam or Erica Driver will be available in our virtual offices during the following times EDT. Here is a link to the Time Zone Converter Web site, should you need it. Please drop in!

We are pleased to announce our public tour schedule for the next few weeks for the ThinkBalm Data Garden on ThinkBalm Island in the virtual world of Second Life. Think of this tour as a next-generation webinar where you’ll learn about our findings and analysis from the ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009, which was published on May 26, 2009. The core question we set out to answer in this research was, “What is the business value of using immersive technologies in the workplace?” We’ll take you on a tour through a memorable, interactive data visualization experience.

ThinkBalm Data Garden public tour schedule for June

All times listed below are Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), which is the same as Second Life time (SLT). Here is a link to the Time Zone Converter Web site, should you need it. Admission to the tour is first-come, first served so it’s a good idea to arrive a little early.

Wednesday, June 10th from 8:00-9:00AM PDT (in the past)

Wednesday, June 17th from 8:00-9:00AM PDT (in the past)

Wednesday, June 24th from 8:00-9:00AM PDT (in the past)

Just added:Monday, June 29th from 6:00-7:00PM PDT — scheduled especially for our friends in the Asia-Pacific region of the world. Here is a link to the Time Zone Converter Web site.